For the second time in 14 weeks, the world’s most often used search engine on the Web has announced a wind power-related agreement that will help the company with its goal of becoming carbon neutral.

Google Inc. said last week it had reached a “green Power Purchase Agreement” that would allow the company to begin purchasing 30 July clean energy from 114 megawatts of wind generation at the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa at a predetermined rate for 20 years.

Norbert Röttgen, German Federal Environment Minister, has thrown his backing behind developing more offshore wind farms in Germany. Röttgen announced today that offshore companies can rely on debt guarantees from the governemnt to secure the financing of “10 mega projects” in the North and Baltic seas up until the end of 2011.

The announcement signals a stronger than previously thought support for wind energy from Röttgen, German newspaper the Spiegel said.

Under the plans, 10,000 MW of offshore wind farm capacity will be built within the next 10 years, and 25,000 MW in the next 20 years.
“I believe that we can reach nearly 100% renewable energy by 2050, and wind power will provide about 50% of this,” Röttgen said in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt.

While the proposed US climate change bill designed to cap carbon emissions has now floundered before reluctant politicians in the Senate, Energy Secretary Steven Chu has announced that the nation is helping launch 11 international clean energy initiatives, including one dealing with wind power.

At the world’s first Clean Energy Ministerial, attended by 24 countries representing more than 80% of global energy consumption and a similar percentage of the global market for clean energy technologies, policy makers were told last week in Washington that the initiatives would eliminate the need to build more than 500 mid-sized fossil fuel power plants world-wide in the next 20 years.

The security of our energy supplies has hit the headlines following a statement last week by Chris Huhne, the UK’s Energy Secretary saying that the UK is “very likely” to experience an oil shock similar to the crises of the 1970s in the next decade.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Huhne said that the UK could be subject to “very severe blows.” Today, the UK imports some 27% of its energy needs, but this is set to rise sharply up to 58% within 10 years, Huhne warned.

According to the Daily Mail, Huhne voiced strong support for wind energy, citing it as “incredibly competitive” in producing power. Building new wind farms across the UK could help the country to withstand some of the energy shocks Huhne discussed in the FT interview.

The European wind power industry should take quick notice of two different yet related pieces of information traveling around cyberspace in the past week as both deal with China’s stunningly rapid growth.

A Bloomberg article noted an Oxford University study indicates European companies could benefit from collaboration with Chinese manufacturers seeking to improve wind park efficiency as the nation continues its meteoric expansion of the emissions-free sector.

“Wind park siting, or picking the best site for the turbine to gain the most wind energy, and grid development are among opportunities for collaboration between European and Chinese companies, Benito Mueller, director of Oxford University’s Institute for Energy Studies, and colleagues wrote in a study,” the Bloomberg article noted.